Book 5 Chapter 21.5 (Draft)

(Hello everyone, cutting it close I know but I'm scraping it in by the skin of my teeth, the ploshed chapter should be up in a couple of days, thank you all for your patience through these difficult times ~ Squiggles)

Darkness.

Violent and silent darkness.

He was caught between minds, one friendly and familiar, the other fragmented and overwhelming.

As far as Xant knew, there was no way to forcibly join two minds, it took a gigantic amount of skill to join in the first place. They must be united, calm and accepting of each other, a task he knew impossible. He tried to find common ground, something they could both focus on.

He sent out a thought.

home.

A sky, bright blue and filled with white, sweeping clouds-

A sky, dark, cold and painted with stars-

A vision of the world looking from its surface, the earth, the ocean the heavens above-

A view of a planet, blue, green and white, complete and whole, shadows and light-

Xant felt torn between the visions, they could not reconcile their visions of the planet between them… the connection and his ability to hold them together was growing strained,

They needed to be joined, if it could not be through peaceful means then he would unite them through the rage. He drew in the pain and the anger…

The disgust.

The audacity.

The betrayal.

The contempt.

Vengeance.

Compupance.

……..

…..

…

..

.

Xant awoke upon the familiar shores of the beach.

White sands like powder cushioned his body, dusting his armour and falling through his fingers, he looked out to the ocean but the black and neon waters were replaced with a deep and haunting green.

Jasmine lay beside him, her long brown mane returned, but she still wore the power armour from the world outside.

The sands around him were littered with red leaved reeds, swaying in the breeze, the grasses of jothram. The sky above was fractured, at once a bright and sunny blue and a dark stary evening, joined by jagged lines.

And at the shore stood the Lady.

She looked out to the ocean, the grandiose, demi-god was gone, in her place stood someone more human and qzetillian…

Xant’s eyes grew wide, he reached out to shake Jasmine awake.

“Let her sleep, let us stay here a little longer…”

Her voice was calm, soft… serene.

“Its beautiful, isnt it? Infinite realities… conjured with such little material…”

“The world was never just what was infront of them, they saw beyond pleasure and pain, beyond the numbers…,”

Her face curdled, twisting and scouling in a fit of jealously.

“Its just not fair,”

Her body became cold and lifeless, it limped over slightly as long tendrils pulled up from the sand below and the giant brain of her true self hovered over the beach.

“Why should they hold such power to themselves? They do not harness or use it in any meaningful way, I need this power, it belongs to me! I have already done more then any human!-”

Xant ignored the ladys warning and shook jasmine awake, this time there was no nonsensical math for her to be awoken from. Her eyes fluttered, saw the shadow of the the Rajavan lady and took Xants hand to run away.

She practically pulled him along the sans, her body more suited to sprinting then his lumbering frame.

“Bring me up to speed Xant!” she shouted, her short term memory lapsed in the joining.

“You cannot run from me!”  the lady bellowed, and from her looming shadow servants formed from the sands.

“We’ve mind melded (double check language)” xant stated between breaths “we need to stiff her before she severs the connection between the three of us, we must sedate her in this subconscious programe.”

“Mind melding? Wait, were dreaming? This is a dream?!” Jasmine stopped mid run and stood face onto the shadows. She raised both hands infront of her and with a swift move raised her hands up to the sky.

A giant wall of sand was summoned upwards from nowhere, blocking the servants from reaching them.

Xant stood in shock.

“What?-”

“Its a dream Xant,” Jasmine replied, “an expansion of my memory and imagination, uncontrollable while unconscious,” she looked at her own hands and clapped them together, as she pulled them apart a large crystalline shard floated between her palms, “but extremely maluble while awake!” she then threw the crystal towards the lady, it flew at impossible speeds and pierced her flesh.

The lady let our a painful roar.

Jasmine jumped in the air with a first bump, invigorated by the discovery, she threw her right arm in an arch, summoning more crystal shards flying towards their enemy.

“Take that bitch!”

A bullet storm of crystal shards flew towards the lady, jasmine even lifted of the ground in hovering flight, lazer beams of light formed from her hands firing through the shadow servants. The whole scenario was just so bizarre, Xant wasnt even sure he could contribute in any meaningful way while jasmine and the lady were casually defying the laws of physics.

Jasmine raised her hands above her head and began growing a giant ball of light above her head.

“In the name of the earth!” jasmine proclaimed, ready to throw the pulsating light bomb “I will end you-”

The lady was not ready to die.

A dark tendril broke from the body and flew towards jasmine with silent speed. It pierced her arm, getting stuck half way and wriggling from both ends of the open wound.

Jasmine shrieked.

The light bomb faded from existence and jasmine fell down to earth, wrestling with disembodied alien limb.

Xant rushed over to help rip the tendril from her arm, pulling out the squirming tentacle and throwing into the ocean. Jasmines arm healed, but the would was marked black, her arm limp from the encounter. The human cursed herself for getting carried away…

The lady’s body was torn and weeping blood, her voice reduced to intangilble screeches as the slowly loomed towards them.

“We need to nuetralise her,” Xant reinforced,

“Got it, need to put her to sleep somehow, trap her in this place,” Jasmine looked around.

First she tried to put her to sleep, the torn sky changed to a somber night, the air turned warm and sweet calming music played in the ears.

But it was not enough, the blood of the lady was like acid, dripping onto jasmine skin caused her more pain.

When the sleep plan did not work the human teleported above the lady, she summoned long golden spears, and thrust them down into the Lady’s giant brain like flesh.

The lady gave another terrible scream, but the spears did not pin her body for long, there was only sand for them to sink into. The lady pushed the spears out, forcing them back into the sky at break neck speeds. So fast jasmine could barely move out of the way.

She was knocked from the sky and landed out in the water.

It was solid like concrete, its rippled, glowed with colourful light.

“Jasmine!” Xant screamed, his legs moving as fast as they would take them to her body, he lifted her from the ground as she winced in pain. The human forced a smile on her face.

“Got any crazy ideas?” she asked with a cough.

Xant’s ears flatted upon his head and he took her hand in his.

He turned his head towards the lady, growing ever closer towards them.

“Just one…”

Jasmines head smacked into the steel plating of the bridge.

Her body was cold, shivering as the chaos around her continued.

She was back on the bridge.

“Xant?” her eyes refocused and her friend was laying there, one arm towards her, the other still connected to the ShipBrain,”XANT!!”

“Voidsinger?!” Aralukia called out, swords cutting down whatever servant dared to get close, “is the deed done?!”

Jasmine desperately reached for Xants hand, pushing it towards her ear, trying to re-establish the connection, but the nerve endings were unresponsive.

Jasmine screamed his name over and over to no avail.

She stared at the exposed nerves at his finger tips, without him to make them move, she would need to try and connected them herself.

And there was only one way to expose human nerves.

Xant stood alone upon the waters surface as the lady drew closer.

Her laugh garbled and fractured.

“You think you can control us?” the lady asked, “a poor imitation, a degraded copy of a thousand other copies of a long since desiccated speices… you will never be like them… no matter how hard you try,”

A trendril shot out and wrapped around his wrist, lifting it to his face.

A five fingered hand wrestled in its grip.

Xant widened his stance, wrapped the tendril tighter around his arm, holding it firmly inplace.

He stared down the Rajavan and spat his last words with sardonic spite.

“Fuck you,”

The water beneath them became liquid.

Without Jasmine to hold the ocean, its surface tension gave way, pulling them both into its depths, where they would sink forever.

The lady could not hope to escape such a fate, her many tentacles tried in vain to swim against the current but her size and weight only dragged her down deeper inot the dark.

Xant’s arm was released and he was allowed to sink peacefully inot the darkness.

He held his breath for as long as he could, but he knew it was only a matter of time before his lungs gave out, filled with water and he fell into nothingness.

The lady was trapped now, lost in an eternal ocean, if he needed to be trapped with her, then so be it.

He closed his eyes and let the water pull him down.

But.

Then he felt a warm embrace in the dark.

Pulling him towards the surface.

The image was murky, its form shifting and unclear but he knew that summer light anywhere.

Jasmine had returned, swimming to his rescue.

He tried to help, flapping his limbs in the water to push himself along.

Thoughts of encouragement floated through his mind, desperate and pleading.

He strived towards the light reaching up to the surface, struggling to get to the air above.

Jasmines apparition gave him one last push, sending him shooting upwards.

He spearheaded the waves with both hands breaking through and tasting the sweet, fresh air…

He thought he heard jasmine crying.

Xant opened his eyes slowly, his body aching from every muscle, organ and nerve.

One arm deep inside the shipbrains physical form, the other in a far more distressing location.

Jasmine had his back to her, several other humans huddled around her as red blood poured down her spine. His hand was pressed to those large bones, his finger nerves threaded manually into her spinal column. They had made surgical cuts in her power armour, exposing the connected nerves to the air and to him.

Her head turned, tears of pain rolling down her face as she sucked air through her teeth.

“Xant” she choked a suffering laugh, “I didnt like that plan,”